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Week 9: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
Zamyatin's We, and an anticipation of Spielberg's AI Artificial Intelligence
return to module outline,
last updated 23.11.09.
N.B. please also read the new notes given at the start of week 8. This week's notes should be interpreted in relation to the assumption that media texts are, in the main, presenting us with characters that mediate our interpretation of the schemata that inform the them and the social contexts within which they live, i.e., they are symptoms of the level of contradiction and multiplicity or uniformity of the schemata portrayed. The notes given here are therefore intended to open up for you the possibility of judging these media texts more critically, with an eye to judging how effective they are in encouraging your interpretative work.
Introduction
To help your preparation for the next assignment, I have based several of the sets of questions on the Truman Show. For instance, try answering these questions:-
Pertinence - to which audience is Truman aimed at (and why is this an important question anyway)?
Conventions - how do 'we' find out about his imagined world (careful - there may be more than one answer)?
Contradiction/affirmation - what social conditions/interpretations, etc. does his narrative seek to contradict, affirm, or modify?
In what ways does the narrative incorporate notions of childhood, family life, and education?
There are other issues, such as how are social values embedded in the lives of protagonists, and how does the narrative manage shifts in the value experiences of the protagonists - i.e., what seems to be influencing these changes?
Zamyatin's We
The reading and websites should give you some insight into this early Russian Twentieth century text. It has been variously described as the precursor to Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World. Written in 1921, it post-dates the Russian Revolution by three years and, not surprisingly given its condemnation of totalitarianism, was banned in Russia - no Russian version was ever made available to its intended audience until 1988 and Zamyatin himself was permanently exiled. Clearly, this was a book that had great political pertinence at the time of its planned publication for its intended audience - but this conjunction was never allowed to happen. However, arguably this one book - even through its non-publication - achieved far more than many more overtly 'political' texts. Such an argument comes down to a matter of influence; We is said to have influenced writers such as Orwell and Huxley, and therefore extended its critical scope beyond Russia, and beyond the time of its immediate assumed pertinence. So the text has been rightly described as a 'classic' - (but by whom, and what is meant by the term?). However you locate this text, it does serve as a useful example with which to start your thinking about the social in relation to the second assignment. For instance, compare it with other utopian texts that you are now familiar with - some of these have been called 'novels of ideas' but what does this mean?
Huxley's Brave New World
In contrast with the history of Zamyatin's We, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World seems both closer to our present but also a more 'dated' presentation of pertinent current issues. The reading will offer you some insight into Huxley's own reflections upon the pertinence of his creation - his 'Foreword' was written in 1946 - just after the ending of World War II and before the Cold War had really gathered momentum. As to the text itself, we will read most of the first three chapters during the session, since these deal with a visit to the London Central 'Hatchery', but the websites provide more contemporary overviews of the book detailing the kinds of contextual matters which you can think about in relation to Truman.
In terms of current pertinence, the most obvious issue to start with is the idea of a society deliberately breeding particular 'types' of people - a kind of genetic engineering without the genetics, since the entire thing is achieved through embryological manipulation. (In fact, what Huxley describes is more in the spirit of Taylorism/Fordism than eugenics - adults coming to the work-place without there being the need for much further training. In Huxley's book, the basics, and much else besides, is largely achieved through embryological manipulation, Pavlovian conditioning for pre-nursery school children, and hypnotic indoctrination/education during sleep for primary age children - in this respect, it is entirely 'of its age'.
As you get further into the text, it is helpful to remind yourself of several utopian 'devices' which Huxley employs, such as the social isolate, Bernard Marx, and the Savage. Both protagonists embody disparate perspectives on the rest of Huxley's utopian/dystopian world and therefore allow him to more readily explore various contradictions within his satire by embodying these contradictions in their beliefs and actions.
As a final reference point, it will be helpful to compare Huxley's text with Orwell's 1984. Orwell's text is more overtly political than Brave New World, but does this entail that the social and educational myths it generates are more 'powerful' - or are other things going on which we have not yet discussed? Note that the contemporary introduction by David Bradshaw points to the Great Depression and the fascistic political solutions which it seemed to encourage as 'the only' viable response.
In terms of the subject focus for this module, the following chapters are particularly recommended: 1, 2, 3, 16, 17; and here are some relevant websites:
Huxley, his Brave New World (also Island - but you'll have to get the book for this text)
http://www.hedweb.com/huxley/bnw/
http://www.squidoo.com/bravenewworld/
http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/miranda/index.htm
The following questions are presented in two sets corresponding to different ways in which you might focus on the social.
A - Truman as a fully contemporary narrative.
What do you think is the principal social 'myth' being considered by this text?
What are the other myths that you can identify from this media text?
How do they relate to one another, if at all?
If each myth is thought of as a 'symptom' of a social setting, what are the settings/causes that you can identify?
What educational issues are raised by this text at the time of its publication?
Are there equivalent but separate issues with respect to childhood and domestic life?
Can you indicate why this text could only have been produced at this time and in this place?
B - Truman as already dated - as already a product of the Hollywood Dream Machine, etc.
What do you consider to be the principal contemporary 'myth' that the text might reasonably be thought to still address?
What has changed during the intervening years - and why?
What has happened to the other myths which you identified?
Are they still related to one another in the same way as was indicated in the text?
If each myth is still thought of as a 'symptom' of a particular social setting or circumstance, what relevant changes to their underlying causes can you identify?
Could the film be changed so as to gain a sharper contemporary focus?
Are there issues with respect to childhood and domestic life that still have relevance?
Why wouldn't this film be made now?
Please also note some further aspects of Huxley's Brave New World.
Unlike Zamyatin's We, Huxley's book was published and received wide acclaim from its intended audience, but within a decade began to seem dated as Huxley drew back from this form of writing (the novel of ideas) and the perceived issues for society shifted before the rise of fascism.
However, after World War II it received three further boosts to its popularity - each related to changing contemporary events: 1) the so-called ''brain-washing' techniques involving isolation and forms of Pavlovian conditioning - said to be used by the Russians and experimented with by both the British and the Americans during the fifties; 2) the widespread use of anti-depressants, recreational and psychotropic drugs during the sixties and early seventies; 3) a re-focussing on both 1 and 2 during the intensification of the Vietnam War (late sixties - early seventies).
More recently still, with the advent of cloning and the widespread introduction on in-vitro techniques, the novel's title and the first few chapters have become almost a free-standing metaphor for the scarier aspects, intentions, and outcomes of modern birthing technologies.
The increasing vividness (and violence) of computer-based recreational and educational games has also been likened to the kinds of deliberate psychological manipulations encouraged by the world state, while the growth of internet initiated sex has been seen as symptomatic of a slide towards the hedonistic and amoral lives lead by the Londoners of AF 632.
But note also that chapters 16 and 17 have not been widely taken up since the time of the book's publication - this despite the fact that there exist a number of critiques of contemporary society which suggest that 'we' are becoming a society of sleep-walkers - advanced capitalism encouraging a state of media-anaesthetised uncaring and irresponsibility, not to say excessive consumption e.g. Guy Debord and his Society of the Spectacle and Jean Baudrillard's various publications.
Finally, compare New Labour's espoused interests with those of the world state: Community, Identity, Stability - the only one which may immediately strike you as out-of-place is 'Identity' - but Huxley intended all three to be ironic. But in what way were they 'ironic' then, and in what way might they seem so now?
Roderick - playing with the social - a precursor for AI Artificial Intelligence by John Sladek
Background:
Roderick is a robot, but unlike any of Isaac Asimov's robots (Google the name and find out about Asimov's three laws of robotics - featured last week), Roderick is built with an electronic learning system equivalent to our own minds. The consequences of this is that he starts out his 'life' like a baby, having no language. After the lab in which he was created is shut down by NASA, various escapades follow in which he is assumed to be a new coffee dispenser, etc., but he is eventually taken in by a childless couple - the Woods - who Roderick's creator once knew. 'Pa' Woods is an eccentric inventor of useless gadgets and 'Ma' woods is an aging hippie. Roderick goes through a protracted and eventful childhood, including a kidnapping by gypsies where he is sold to a circus as a fortune-telling machine, but eventually he is found again by the Woods and undergoes schooling in the small town in the American mid-West where they live. Although at this point in the story Roderick is still trundling around on caterpillar tracks, has a cone shaped body, and an almost blank sphere for a head (with two binocular-like eyes and a speaker for talking), people continue to treat him as a 'crippled - I mean handicapped' child who is buried inside a prosthesis. (The rumour amongst the locals is that he was terribly burned as a baby in a caravan fire in which his real mother was killed.) Roderick starts by attending the local state primary, but because of the bullying he experiences, and his inadvertent changing of the school records to reflect his own childish likes and dislikes of other children and staff, he is asked to withdraw. The Woods decide to send him to the near-by Catholic school. There, Father Warren takes on the task of convincing Roderick that he has a soul ... .
Father Warren came in kneading his hands. 'Well now, have you read that book I lent you?'
'Yes Father, I mean I read all the words and looked them up and all, only I still couldn't understand it.'
'Ah! Might be a little hard for such a young - '
'I mean on the very first page there's these three laws of robots and they don't make any sense.'
'Ah! The famous Three Laws of Robotics? They make perfect sense. Believe me, this is airtight logic.' He quoted from memory, counting fingers. "First, 'A robot may not injure a human being , or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm." Seems plain enough. Second, "A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First law." No nonsense there. And third, "A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law." Now which of these gives you trouble?'
'Well all of them. Look father I'm a robot and I don't -'
'Still insisting on that, are we? Roderick, do me a favour. Take this pin.' The priest plucked a pin from a desk drawer and held it out. 'Go on take it. Now, stick me with it.'
'What?'
'Stick the pin in my hand there, go on. You're supposed to be a robot, so I'm ordering you, go on.'
'Yeah but - well okay.' Roderick made a weak swipe with the pin, raising a tiny scratch on the back of the hand.
'Ouch!' Father Warren smiled. 'You have just proved that you can't possibly be a robot. You violated the First Law.'
Roderick watched a drop of blood form on the scratch. 'I guess so. Only -'
'No guessing about it. Logic says you can either be a robot or stick me with a pin, but not both.'
'Yeah that's logic all right, but only if you go along with these here three laws. But I mean they're only in stories and this is real life. I mean like in the Oz stories they just got one law in Oz, "Behave yourself". Only in real life people don't, do they?'
'No, Roderick, but listen -'
'And like this here other story about the man going up on the mountain and getting these here pills with laws on them, heck even by the time he gets down the mountain everybody's breaking the laws all over the place, worshipping a golden leg and -'
'No, listen - '
'I mean like nobody ever pays attention to the laws except like cops and Sheriff Benson and maybe lawyers like Perry Ma - What was that?' He referred to a series of rapid explosions that seemed to come from the floor.
'Nothing, just Father O' Bride getting in some target practice, he's got a little gallery rigged up in the base, but wait, listen, the point is, in real life there are no robots, no real thinking, humanoid creatures. They're all in stories. And in these stories, they have to obey the Three Laws. Right?'
'Maybe, but even in stories they have to have big arguments about laws, look at Perry Mason, holy cow they argue all the time about whether somebody did or didn't break this here law, holy cow Mr Swann makes all his money just telling people how to get around the law.'
'Roderick, let me explain: there are two kinds of law. You're talking about legal statutes, yes of course people can break those. Just as they can break moral laws like the Ten Commandments. But there's also another kind of law, natural law. That includes things like the law of gravity, or the law that says 2 + 2 = 4, or the law that says if Tom is taller than Dick, and Dick is taller than Harry, then Tom must be taller than Harry. And you see, nobody on earth can break laws like those. And so robots are programmed in such a way that the Three Laws are their natural laws. They can't be broken.'
'Yeah but how? How can they program a robot to obey some dumb law he can't even understand? Like first thing he needs to know who's a human being and who ain't. Like I heard this old guy by the post office saying the president was a son of a bitch and somebody ought to shoot him. I'm just saying what he said Father. But with these dumb laws a robot could hear that and get a gun and go shoot the president because he's only a dog so it's okay.'
'Now you're being silly. Everybody knows the president is human.'
'Yeah, but the Robotic Law don't say how a robot's supposed to find out who's human and who's robots, like what's he supposed to do, go see Mr Swann every time he wants to stick a pin a doll or -'
'Excuse me for a minute ... ' The priest hurried out, lifting his skirts as he thumped down the basement stairs into the dark gallery.
Father O' Bride was a shadowy alien, with a pair of bright orange ear-protectors standing out from the sides of his head like insect eyes. And wasn't that a picture of the Pope he was shooting at?
'What? Whatsa matter?' O' Bride took off his ear-protectors and automatically kissed their strap before putting them down. 'You still crapping around tryina convert that Wood brat?'
'He .... gets on my nerves sometimes.'
'Little smart-ass, needs fifty laps, that's what he needs.'
'... tried everything, I've tried talking to him about Space-ship Earth even, how if he were an alien landing here -'
'Excuse me while I throw up. I can't stand all that space crap, can't stand that kid either. You know what?'
'- how the alien would wonder Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?'
'Yeah but you know what?'
'But listen, I told him we came from the mind of God, and he - he just said, "Pa thinks we're all apes who got tired of picking fleas and grunting" not even seven years old and he -'
'Yeah but you know what I think?'
'Where are we going, to the destiny God prepared for us, he came right out with how his mother says when people dies they turn into ether and rise up through seven astral planes - '
'You know what I think? I think the kid is a darn robot.'
